Kahuna already posted about me finally leaving the site, but I wanted to say thanks to everyone for the rides, fun, etc over the years.
I rode my first standup in 1991, a bone stock 440, in the 'surf' if you can call it that at Folly Beach in Charleston, SC - that was a trial by fire trust me. I bought my own 440 which was modded somewhat with a Kerker pipe, mild cleanup porting, etc. I took that ski with me to Hawaii (in the Navy) in 93 then built and painted a 550 and brought that back in 95. While in Hawaii, I rode surf 3-4 times/week if I wasn't at sea on the sub, turned some buoys, at Hawaii Kai and Hickam AFB most of the time. My main riding buddy was from Guam and his brother ran a race shop there so when we pulled in for an upkeep I got to ride surf there, buoys, and got to ride a pro mod 750 that was just brutal.
Once I got back to the mainland, I bought a 95 SXi and did some racing but turned to freestyle, bought a SJ and put some 24/7 stuff on it and started competing with the Liquid X Freestyle Tour (the Twangled guys) which was a mess, but still made it fun. I rode a SJ but was sponsored by a Polaris dealer so I painted it like the Polaris race sitdowns then the Octane came out and looked very similar to my ski which was fun. I did get 3rd overall one 'season' and won the Sickest Trick competition at the Jam in Nashville whichever year that was.
The online side of jetskiing started with rec.sport.jetski (a Usenet newsgroup that most of you won't even know what that is/was) then Rob started PWCToday and most people jumped over there until the SBT/PWCToday switchover in Dec 2005 and the X was born the next month.
I got into mountain biking, had 3 kids, and the standup scene around here died off by the late 2000's, so I ended up selling my ski in 2011 which was a pretty light squarenose conversion with a carbon/kevlar and s-glass topdeck along with all of my extra parts.
It was a great 20 years of riding.
See you around!
First ride on my 440 in 40F water wearing 2 wetsuits - there wasn't anyone around except my buddy on shore, so I stayed in the tray.
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First SJ during my competition days during poster autograph session
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Winner winner chicken dinner
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Daytona-photo by RonnyMac of course
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Freshly built 550 in Hawaii with the coolest Sano Pads ever
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I was riding in pools before Mark Gomez was out of diapers...this was at Jetfest at Kentucky Lake in the rec.sport.jetski days, on my wife's 550 I built
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Wilmington, NC
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Failed backflip in Daytona during the Cherry Buster
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